Today we’ve updated the Creator with a very popular feature requests from users: video hosting!

Converting and hosting your own videos has always been a bit of a hassle, so we’ve gone ahead and taken away that headache and made it simple and easy to use AR video.

Now when you want to use the AR video widget, you only need to select the video from your computer and upload it to the Creator. We’ll convert the video to the proper format and host it for you. We’ll even keep a library of your videos so you can easily add them to more than one campaign.

The most common video formats are supported, including MP4, AVI, FLV and AAC. There’s no limit on the size of the video, be it must be shorter than 5 minutes. Once you upload a video, we’ll quickly convert it in the background so you can continue to work on your campaign.

An advantage to uploading and hosting your videos in the Creator is that we can dynamically serve the best quality video to users depending on the strength of their Internet connection. That way they’ll have the smoothest experience possible with your campaign without any extra work on your end.

Video hosting is available for Premium Accounts, so upgrade today to take advantage of this great new feature!

Also coming soon to Premium Accounts is the ability to use videos with alpha channel transparency. This means you can create video files with transparent backgrounds to better integrate them into your campaigns.

South African cafe chain vida e caffè has partnered with Dubai Tourism and the Atlantis, The Palm resort in Dubai to launch an innovative augmented reality contest with Layar.

Thanks to the help of local Layar Certified Partner Digital Narrative, vida e caffè is offering its customers the chance to win an all-expenses-paid five-night stay in the luxurious resort by scanning its coffee cups.

Over 330,000 cups have been adorned with a special sleeve made interactive with Layar. Coffee drinkers can scan the cups with the Layar App to see a video about the resort and enter for a chance to win the trip.

“As a brand we are always looking for innovative ideas and concepts to leverage from,” said Andrea Calitz, Marketing Manager, vida e caffè. “Our coffee cup sleeves are a popular media space and we were looking for a way to take this concept to the next level. Our goal is to show potential brands and customers out there that the vida cup sleeve is a great addition to any media or brand strategy.”

“It’s great to work with partners that are willing to push the envelope and try new things to engage their customers,” said Johan Walters, Director, Digital Narrative. “With Augmented Reality we are making the print media digitally relevant to the consumer. And at the same time, create something innovative and exciting for the customer.”

They brand has even enlisted the talents of some local YouTube celebrities to promote the contest with their unique brand of humor.

The contest is currently running throughout the month of September, so if you’re in South Africa, head over to a vida e caffè location and enter to win!